Harry Potter Book 8

Floyd recently read Harry Potter Book 1 with Cole. He loved it. They are now in the middle of book 2 and the problem is that past book 2, I think they get a little too scary for a 5-year-old. Cole insists he is going to read them all and I insist he will wait a few years. Cole really likes making books, so the other day he wrote a little Harry Potter book. The title - "Harry Potter and the Dragon of Justice." He wrote the entire book himself - the only word I helped him spell in the entire book was "justice." He, obviously, did not spell them all correctly, but his invented spelling shows how crazy English language rules are. The whole language people would be so proud of his work. I tend to lean more toward the "we need to teach phonics" side of that debate, but even still it was fun to see him work on it. (You likely have no idea what the whole language/teach phonics debate is if you do not have a child learning to read or did not take a collegiate reading pedagogy class - it's really just another thing to argue about). The book is 11 pages long - here is a sampling with corrected spelling and punctuation added by mom.

"Harry Potter and the Dragon of Justice"

Ron and Harry sat at the table for breakfast.

When Harry and Ron got off the table, Ron was holding a large broom.

Harry and Ron ran away as fast as fast as fast as fast.

Harry and Ron were scared.

When Harry Potter and Ron were happy Professor McGonagall was waiting.

The (can't figure it out) part of Hogwart's was close.

Suddenly a huge dragon came.

But as Harry and Ron were close,

Ron had a large broom.

The End.

He's obviously missing a few details in the plot, but all in all it wasn't a bad story. I quite liked the title, although I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually know what the word "justice" means. It's fun to watch him learn and see words come alive for him. Next week he starts the first grade reading level. We can't wait!